Discussion
I realize we're mad that enough dems missed the Hegseth impeachment vote that it failed.
I realize that it looks bad that Stevens is one of those absent, and it's easy to read malice into that, given Recent Events.
But we cannot freak out about stuff like this without *understanding* it first and reading past the headlines. This is actually kind of important.
@mcc It's not the worst thing I've seen, but, maybe not the *best* analysis either. Like, legislators do have valid reasons for being places other than the house floor, the speaker has a lot of discretion as to when things happen, it's a lame duck session, is "showing up for work" a valid metaphor in this context? I honestly don't know! And your thread isn't informing me about that either. However, you're raising something valid, which is something that was left out of my thread
@glyph Showing up for work is a metaphor which sometimes is reified in the form of literally showing up for work.
I want to stress I meant it when I said this vote did not matter. But I also mean it about the question of "when serious time comes, will the Democrats be serious?". People being upset about this vote are probably extrapolating "if they won't fight now, they won't fight next year or the year after", which is (1) illogical (2) probably a trauma response (3) potentially correct
@mcc btw just on the "showing up for work" thing, it's possible that you're just 100% correct, but "for work" for a legislator *does* involve more stuff than literally just being on the floor all the time. constituent services stuff, party caucus stuff… a lot of that is when the house isn't in session, but not all of it. and I could imagine that there is a LOT of planning and such that needs to be happening right now for dems, after last Tuesday
@mcc yeah 100% agreed with all of that, too. and you're like… allowed to have a trauma response on main, particularly if you can identify it as such. it's OK, even if it's not the sharpest procedural analysis. and to finish my own reply, much as I think we need to be focused, you mentioned that you are not going to be impressed. and I am … similarly very not impressed by how they're handling this.
@glyph i don’t disagree with your larger point but regarding the narrow point about whether it was a scheduling trick by Republicans, the Times reported Tuesday morning that it could be later that day. and according to NBC News the measure had to be voted on within two days. that doesn’t rule out all maneuvering but means the vote doesn’t seem to have come out of the blue.
@glyph i do acknowledge that Democrats could easily impeach Hegseth when they get a majority. this vote was neither the last nor best opportunity to do that.
@alys my point is more about getting mad because "11" sounds like a big number, without citing a specific reason. I don't want to put anybody on blast (particularly smaller accounts just venting) but there's a lot of … somewhat over- dramatic venting about this right now, as people are crashing from the high of the blue wave and seeing this as a historic betrayal when it is, at worst, a minor display of incompetence from the current caucus, and at best something that just didn't matter at all
Consider this article, whose headline is so bad it borders on journalistic malpractice: https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/pelosi-hegseth-impeachment-vote-22524306.php
"Pelosi skips the vote!" obviously gives you some Feelings if you have an existing criticisms of Pelosi. And I do! But, uh, *9* paragraphs down, we get to this tidbit: "It’s possible House Republicans intentionally called Tuesday’s vote while certain members were away." You think? You think that Mike Johnson might have scheduled this in a way that would cause it to fail, on purpose?
I don't even know the in and outs of this specific procedural move personally. Maybe it would have been possible somehow to see this schedule coming, but I feel like the null hypothesis in the absence of further information is "probably not". In that article, one member was *literally stuck in traffic on the way* and physically could not get to the house floor for the vote. That does not sound to me like people were "skipping" to intentionally miss a vote that might pass.
@glyph Gah, somehow that's the first I heard about someone getting stuck in traffic. That sure feels like procedural fuckery.
@xgranade @glyph Among my questions here is "if it really is possible without repercussions to notice a member of the opposite party is stuck in traffic, rush a vote on a bill you want to kill, and then close the vote early before even all the members of your own party who are in the building have been able to vote, why have the Democrats never tried this?"
But more to the point, I have not seen any *reporting* that describes how they would have been notified of the schedule in advance, or *why* the missing members were not present. If you want to be mad about this, stuff like that is really important!
I can't tell you how to feel. Maybe this just makes you mad even if it's not really their fault, and if that's the case then fair enough. Feeling a specific way about a specific procedural event is not my point. My point is: the next 2 years are going to be rough. Dems are going to have power, but dems are also a big messy coalition, and that means we are going to need to push them. Call them all the time. We are going to need to have our house rep and our senator set as starred contacts.
